Led by Lord Goolding and his team of expert inquisitors, their determination to uncover the truth would tolerate no lies, diversions or any pretence to amnesia. Which would never happen.

Assorted ministers, spin doctors, civil servants and the inquiry team itself fell apart before us as the cynical, murky and chaotic microcosm of government withered in the full scrutiny of a public inquiry.

All the previous four seasons’ rivalries came home to roost as battered egos tumbled, careers wilted and any coherent thought or argument crumbled. As each testimony disintegrated, lies were exposed and all human dignity was stripped.

At the summit, as always, spin doctor Malcolm Tucker, plying his cynical trade. Only this time, Mephistopheles became Faustus and fell into the pit he himself constructed. This was a gem of a performance as the normally self-assured Tucker ran out of track and watched his career plunge into the ravine. But did he go quietly?

On his recall to the committee room, with the damage already done, Tucker reverted to the thing he knew best and went on the attack. It was a futile, empty and humiliating last hurrah, digging still deeper his political grave.